The exemplary embodiment relates to the field of personalized marketing and finds particular application in connection with a system and method for personalizing of advertisements that are presented beside content of a website, such as a social networking site.
Advertising is widely used in the form of popups, banners, and side panels on websites to persuade viewers of the content of those websites to click on the advertisement. This generally actuates a web link to the sponsor's web page where the viewer can purchase products or services offered for sale by the sponsor who has purchased the advertisement or take other actions which are of benefit to the sponsor. The advertisement often includes the name of a product or service or a picture representative of it and also a name or logo identifying the brand of product or service or the sponsor's name.
In the case of social or professional media websites (e.g., social or professional network sites), traffic generation from content, particularly in the form of advertising, is often used as a method of selling a product or increasing awareness of a website or service. The viewer's attention is generally focused on the web page content, rather than the advertisements. Thus, the advertisements are often ignored. Because the sponsor may be charged for the advertising, irrespective of whether the viewer clicks on it to actuate the link, such advertising is typically targeted in order to obtain maximum traffic flow. The content of the advertisements may thus be delivered based on keywords appearing on a user-selected web page, for example. The sponsor could be provided with access to the user's profile, which has been submitted by the user to the website and display advertisements based on that. However, profiles filled in by users of social networking sites do not always accurately portray their interests.
It would be beneficial to be able to provide advertisements which are of interest to the viewer which can be selected in an automatic or semiautomatic manner.
It would also be beneficial to be able to generate a profile for a user of a website in an automatic or semiautomatic manner, which does not need to rely on user input.